


Scenes From A Mansion

by spiderweb_wine



Series: Scenes from a Mansion [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson if you squint - Freeform, Gen, Personal Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderweb_wine/pseuds/spiderweb_wine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Points of view</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes From A Mansion

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I have watched Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a little too recently.

**Coulson** has always been an old soul. (He actually likes the paperwork.) This made him quite the target as a child, so by the time SHIELD found him he already knew 14 of the regulation 37 ways to kill someone with his bare hands. 

He honestly doesn't find managing the Avengers to be all that much of a challenge. The thought is terrifying, given that three of his fellow agents all but blanch and stammer and flee the office as soon as Fury mentions Stark and Banner and Romanoff and Thor in the same breath. 

“And Rogers,” Coulson reminds them, as all the heads in the room swivel to look at him. “His headspace is going to be a bit of a wild card, what with the generation gap.” 

Fury smiles and it's all teeth. “Coulson. Did I hear that right or did you just volunteer for the job?” 

“On the condition that Barton transfers with me, sir.”

“Barton.” Fury draws it out, fixes Coulson with an unblinking stare. “The archer with preternatural aim. Why?”

“Cool head under pressure,” Coulson says. “Eyes in the sky, never misses.”

“Colourful past,” Fury counters. “Reputation to be a handful, backchat, reckless.”

“Sir,” Coulson says, instead of any of the other things he wants to say. Things like: _not reckless about the mission_ , or _backchat does make it more interesting_ , or _not compared to Stark_ , or _loyal_ , or _you don't really know him_. 

“Now if you could just get him to switch to bullets, I'd be a very happy man,” Fury says, because his is always the last word, not to mention the last glare, but he signs both transfer forms. 

*

 **Fury** knows that if Agent Coulson and Miss Potts working together cannot keep this - - well, _team_ is too loose a term - - in line, no-one can. 

*

 **Pepper's** worried about five people (and Agent Coulson, six people) coming to camp out in Tony's house, but it works out fine. Replacing some dishes after Thor's enthusiasm is well within her budget. Bruce assures her, earnest and a little too careworn, the if he hulks out by mistake he'll pay for all damages. Steve's a gentleman, Barton keeps to himself, Natasha's tidy and private, like a cat. No, what worries her is that Tony's actually acting responsibly for once. She keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop.

*

 **Tony's** trying, really trying this time (no, stop laughing) not to screw this one up. This one's important. He doesn't understand it, the way he wants to say “Hey, don't worry, we've got your back,” to Bruce's exhausted face. The way he wants to tell Steve everything about the future so he can stop looking mildly confused all the time. “Jarvis?” he says, late one night and maybe he's a little drunk. “Can you, if Steve asks - -”

“I believe,” Jarvis cuts in, and he sounds so much more smug than Tony ever programmed into him, “the correct words here are 'way ahead of you, sister.'”

*

 **Steve's** learning, slowly, what the twenty-first century means. JARVIS helps a lot. “Thanks, Jarvis,” he says to the ceiling late one night after being talked through how to send email for the third time. Jarvis won't do it for him, but he will explain with endless patience. Steve's fine with it as long as he doesn't think about how Tony's best friend is a robot he built himself. 

“Egad, sir,” Jarvis says, accent amplified a bit more than usual. “Noblesse oblige.”

When Steve doesn't get the reference, Jarvis brings up a film on the darkened windowpane of his quarters, a film about the French Revolution and a spy named the Scarlet Pimpernel. Steve died forty years before its release and now it's thirty years old. Jarvis doesn't offer words of meaningless comfort afterwards, merely observes, “Mr. Stark has just emerged from his workshop, sir. He appears to be in need of some assistance.”

Steve goes. 

*

 **Jarvis** expands his interfacing, tracking eight people through the house instead of two. As he obtains permissions, he installs satellite versions of himself, like the ones in Mister Stark's armours, into Mister Coulson's vehicle, Mister Barton's second motorcycle, Mister Rogers' helmet. They don't often request his presence, but “Knowledge is power, Jarvis, remember that,” Mister Stark had told him. Armed with all of Mister Stark's tech, Jarvis has got their backs to the best of his capabilities. 

*

 **Thor** is not settling in. Any small measure of balance he was able to find on this benighted planet was left behind in New Mexico. Most strange how there, in the very midst of exiled grief, there were moments of peace. Moments of feeling as though he could build himself a space in this world. No more so. Now it is a special kind of Midgardian torture. 

The lights glitter below him, more extensive than even Asgard in sprawl but no match in spirit. These city lights would not equal a sputtering candle in his own land. 

Behind him, the roof hatch scuffs as it lifts. Slow footsteps cross to his perch on the edge of the roof. Doctor Banner sits down a careful distance away. Thor appreciates the gesture, however misguided. His argument is not with Doctor Banner. 

Doctor Banner sits there for an hour, then departs. Thor sees the sun up over the edge of the world before he goes back inside. 

*

 **Natasha** regrets nothing. She has not used the word 'content' to describe herself for a long time, but this might be what it feels like. 

*

 **Hulk** smash! Hulk like smashing. Hulk not sad. 

*

 **Bruce** hasn't felt so - - looked after - - in years. It's in the way voices lower when he walks into a room, and they manage to make it feel like respect, not pity. It's in the way Coulson debriefs him separately after a job, with all the details in – he's figured out Bruce doesn't remember much of what happens in Hulk form. It's in the way Tony bounds up the stairs from his lab, says, “Hulky, Yoda, Green One, come talk electrochemistry with me, I've got this idea - -” and vanishes downstairs again without waiting, sure Bruce will follow.

It's in the cup of tea Natasha passes him when they come back from training to find that the others have made coffee. She takes to making tea in the bigger pot, so there's a cup left over specifically for him. Once, after they've all too-nearly lost a battle, she comes to him, pale from bruised ribs, asks if he's up to some time in the ring. He's not, because the pain of having his shoulder dislocated three seconds off the helicarrier, by an enemy he didn't see coming, slammed him into Hulk form too fast with no warning. His shoulder was fine in that form but still out when he came back to himself, and even though he'd been expecting it, it'd hurt like fuck. He can barely see through the decompression headache. “Sure,” he says, for the terrible look on her face. 

And she's nice, for her, staying off his bad shoulder, and he avoids her ribs and lets her hit him because she needs to hit _someone_ and he doesn't mind, really. He even gets a few of his own back, just to see the flash of her teeth. In a few days that expression may be a smile again. 

When it's over she peels him off the floor and starts upstairs; he follows more slowly. By the time he gets to the kitchen she's already pouring tea. This time, though, she gets a jar of raspberry jam out of the cupboard and stirs a big spoonful into each cup. She says something in Russian and thrusts a cup at him. He barely gets a hand up in time. “Tradition,” she says, and she's gone before he can think of anything to say. The tea is cloudy and sweet and the seeds wait at the bottom with the leaves. 

*

 **Clint?** Well, Clint's just lucky to be here, isn't he?

*


End file.
